Now is the hour to go renewable

Convert 60 minutes of near-darkness into a permanent shift in household energy use – that's the local goal of Saturday's Earth Hour.

Seven years in, the global movement to urge action on climate change will include Palestinian territories, Tunisia and such far-flung regions as the Galapagos Islands and Suriname for the first time, as organisers look to beat last year's participation in 152 nations or territories and 7001 cites.

At home, landmark sites such as the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Arts Centre will turn off their lights at 8.30pm, to be joined later by Malaysia's Petronas Towers, Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and New York's Empire State Building.

While critics have questioned the value of the annual hour-long gesture to curb power use, activists aim to tap the evening's enthusiasm for longer-lasting benefits, such as the planting of an “Earth Hour Forest” in Uganda, and to demonstrate community concern about a warming planet.

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In Australia, this year's push is to get people to sign pledges – via the Earth Hour website – to switch to renewable energy. Australians roughly doubled solar photovoltaic capacity last year to 2 gigawatts – equivalent to two big coal-fired power stations.

Switching to renewables “makes eminent sense”, said John Hewson, a former Liberal leader and an Earth Hour ambassador. “It's a very practical way to give [the event] more substance than just turning out the lights.”

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“You're changing attitudes which over time will change behaviour, and will change outcomes.”

Renewable backing

A survey commissioned by event organisers, WWF, found Australians want renewable energy to supply 27 per cent of total energy needs by 2020. As it happens, that ratio is about the share expected in the electricity sector after the government on Thursday decided to leave its renewable energy target unchanged despite protests from big generators that the outcome will overshoot the original 20 per cent goal.

Mr Hewson said global leadership to combat climate change had been lacking in the past five years, notwithstanding the initial enthusiasm of former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

“Rudd said it was the moral challenge of this century," Mr Hewson said. "But to me it's the moral, economic, social and political challenge. It really is the big issue.”

“The necessary response is urgent and it's getting more urgent every year. You don't see that sense of urgency reflected in governments around the world.”

Regions of Australia continue to report unusually warm weather after the hottest summer on record. Onslow Airport in Western Australia set a new late-season record on Thursday for a 45-degree or hotter day, with the mercury hitting 45.6.

Melbourne is also expecting 35 degrees next Wednesday, which would make it six such days for March. An average March would see just one day of 35 degrees or more for the city.

Mr Hewson, meanwhile, said his decision last December to become a director of Larus Energy, a gas developer in Papua New Guinea, did not detract from his renewables push.

“Gas is better than coal,” he said.“Take a place like PNG, I'd rather be burning LNG than burning diesel.”

Barely 12 per cent of the country has access to electricity, Mr Hewson said, and even the capital Port Moresby is routinely cloaked in smog after regular black-outs force residents to use diesel generators. “Everything's an improvement on that.”